[Trisno's letter of yesterday's date with my reply in red for easy reference]
Hi Trisno,
Glad to
see that you are having success with your artificial incubation. I answer
your queries below:
Hi
David,
How are
you? Hope you are OK.
Just
want to update and share my experiences with you related to my earlier email to
you.
1. I
have successfully hatched 1 shama egg (of 2 eggs) using the artificial
incubation. Thanks for your advices on this. On 6 January 2014, I took 2 eggs
from the nest and put them straight away in the incubator at the same day
because I assume the eggs have been for more than two days in the nest. Do you
think if this is the case I still have to wait for one to two days before
placing it to the incubator based on your explanation whereby a fresh egg
should not be immediately placed to the incubator?
DDS: I
think the advice that the eggs should be placed in the incubator only a couple
of days after it is laid is meant to imitate what happens when the female shama
itself broods the eggs. In the wild and
often in captivity, the female will not start to sit until the 2nd
last, or last, egg is laid. This means
that the first 2 eggs (out of say, 4 eggs) will not be actively incubated until
the 3rd or 4th egg is laid. I do not think it is critical to wait for 2
days before artificially incubating the eggs.
2. On
fifth day of incubation (10 January 2014), the electricity is off for more than
5 hours. On the second hours when the electricity is off, I put the eggs to my
old incubator (using 2 lamps) whereby the heat comes from the candle which is
lighted under the incubator. However, the temperature for sure becomes highly
uncontrollable. Do you have any similar experiences when the power is off?
DDS: In the
place where I stay, the electricity supply is reliable and I do not have experience
with power failure when incubating the eggs.
If this is a problem where you live, you may want to consider getting a
standby battery that will automatically switch on whenever there is a power
failure, such as what is available for computers.
It may
interest you to know that, as an experiment, I have artificially hatch poultry
eggs in a homemade incubator. I used an
oil lamp with a short wick that is placed in a box with holes in the
sides. I can keep the temperature
reasonably constant by the number, size and location of the holes. A tray of water is put in the box to provide
the humidity. As you no doubt know from
the lessons in school, hot rises and cool air will replace it. In effect, this is what a still-air incubator
does. The eggs will need to be turned by
hand several times a day. With shama
eggs, I think turning 3 to 4 times a days is sufficient.
3. Right
after the electricity was on, I candled the eggs for the first time which the
result was the moving embryos lived in those eggs. However, in the third
candling on 14 January 2014, I found one egg did not develop while the other
has developed and the embryo has been dark and filled the entire egg. Do you
think the shut power has affected the said egg? I understand that the “living
egg” must be separated from the “dead egg” which can arise a toxic gas. The
question will be how much is the affect for the "living egg" if it
remains to be incubated with the "dead egg" since this case is normal
in natural incubation?
DDS: The
electricity shut-down could have affected egg development. If the eggs are together for the length of
the incubation period, I do not think that the spoilt eggs will affect the
other eggs. As you note, in normal
incubation, all the eggs continue to remain together in the nest for the period
of incubation.
4. In
the morning of 16 January 2014 (in the beginning of 11th day),
the egg was successfully hatched (the photo is attached). On the first day, the
chick is fine and I do not have any problems with chick feeding based on your
advice.
DDS:
Wonderful. Just bear in mind not to
overfeed the chick. More chicks die from
overfeeding than underfeeding.
5. The
shama pair of this egg is indeed incredible. Previously, I have actually paired
this male shame with 5 females, but it always fails since the male always
fights and bites all the females. The funny thing when pairing these shamas,
this last female fights back to death and bites the male shama until the male
finally surrender and welcome the female. I get this female shama from my
friend in Aceh who is also an administrator of muraibatuaceh.blogspot.com.
Thanks Om Herry.
DDS: It is
a good sign when the male gives in to the female. He is much more powerful than the female and
can easily kill her if he chooses. I
have great admiration for Om Herry who is popularly known as HerryAcheh and I
regularly visit his blog. Herry is very knowledgeable about shamas and, I think, has contacts to obtain them from trappers. If you are
interested in breeding long-tailed shamas, Herry may be able to assist since
Acheh is the only province in Indonesia that is known to still have long-tailed
shamas in the wild.
6. If
you don’t mind, I will come back to you with more update on the chick.
Best regards,
David
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